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Old 02-25-2005, 08:44 AM   #19
SLS
Finish the'71..or bust!
 
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Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Nashville, TN.
Posts: 441
Something to consider:

How many people out there have a cab that has a good bottom, a bad top, and would be willing to chop it up, package it, and ship it.....for $200-$300???

Not many, I'd bet.


What you probably would need to do is deal with salvage yard operators, or people who already own such pieces and want to get rid of them...and can cut them up on the spot. Problem is, at least around here, most of the 67-72's I've found in the salvage yard...the yard wanted to sell the whole thing. No leaving the frame and chassis, rotten bed, broken glass, shredded seats behind. I don't really know why that is like that here, but just what I have experienced locally.

Would I spend the time to locate, inspect, maybe (or maybe not) purchase, and tote a cab/truck to my shop, unload it, then cut it up, package it for shipping, deliver it to Greyhound, cleanup the mess in my shop, and then make another trip to the recycler with the leftover pieces...all for $200-$300? No.

If I had a cab (and cab only) sitting here in my backyard that had a decent (easily fixable) bottom, would I go through the trouble of cutting it up, dealing with preping it to ship, and then taking it to Greyhound (for $300).....when I could just run a $10 ad in 'Wheels and Deals', sell the whole thing for $300 or more...and watch the new buyer load it up and tote it away? Again, no.


That's because, around here anyway, if a cab is bad enough to go to the crusher...it usually means that the bottom is trash to begin with. If the bottom is indeed a good one....a person can sell it for more intact (locally) than for what you are suggesting that they hack it up and ship it to you for ($200-$300).

For starters, alot of the cabs I've seen around here that would even merit cutting the bottoms out of..............are decent to begin with. Almost all of them have rust issues with the parts you are wanting to begin with.....lower pieces (rockers, pans, corners). And the sellers are usually wanting $300 or more for them anyway. I'd come out WAY ahead by stripping the cab, replacing the rusty pieces, and then selling the cab as a whole unit....ready to go. Plenty of people here in the south need SOLID cabs too. Preferably, the title would be be great, if the seller has it. If not, Rosette rivits...your original VIN plate.....BAM!...ready to roll.

Even if the cab (with good rockers, pans, corners) was given to me for free, I couldn't justify the time spent chopping it up and shipping it for $200-$300. Around here just replacing a pair of rockers on someone's cab can get you $600 or more....with far less effort.

What I'm thinking is, if I bought a cab with a good lower portion, and then went to the trouble involved in cutting it up and shipping it.......how would I not lose $$$......unless someone is willing to pay $300 or more for the cab I'm going to buy for them......plus another $200-$300 to cut it up and ship it....and then pay for the shipping too?

Last time I had a shipment from Greyhound, it was 1 door shell (Nevada to Tenn)......and they charged around $75. I don't even want to estimate what it would cost for them to ship a entire floor pan with rockers, corners, mounts, ect.

Between the cost of the cab ($300-up), the labor involved in chopping it up and packaging it for shipping ($200-$300???), and then the cost of shipping it (even Greyhound..surely $200 or more)............a person could easily have more than $1000 in a repairable floor pan/lower portion of a cab......and then they would still have to deal with repairing it and installing it in their project.....yet $600 is "not worth it" for fresh sheetmetal in easy-to-handle pieces?

Am I missing something?

"But one problem that still remains is that if you do the whole cab... now you have to go through the title process or hey guess what....WE'D JUST CUT THE BOTTOM OFF WHEN IT GOT HERE!"

Why would the seller or the buyer have to go through the title process...if the buyer has stated that he intends to cut the bottom off of it when he gets it? Seems to me that the title transfer would only be an issue if the buyer was going to use the VIN plate off of the donor cab.

Again, am I missing something?


Im with 72402.....I would NOT cut up a cab that had GOOD lower pieces to begin with......as these are the ones that are HARD TO FIND in the first place.......................unless it has been rolled or something.....and I have not seen any of those yet. Truthfully, I have looked at more cabs than I can remember....and I don't recall seing one that had a good bottom.....and a rotten top. Seems that they were all either rotten at the bottom, or rotten all over.

Last edited by SLS; 02-25-2005 at 10:41 AM.
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